5.  The applicant was born in 1940 and lives in Kirove, Dzerzhynsk.
6.  On 3 March 1998 Igor Antonov, the applicant’s adult son was hitchhiking on an intercity motorway and was hit by a car being driven by V.L. Soon after the accident Igor Antonov died in the hospital.
7.  On 3 March 1998 (the date of the accident) a Krynychansky Road Police expert examined the accident site and drew up an accident report.
8.  On 9 March 1998 an expert facility of the Krynychansky Road Police concluded, on the basis of the accident report, that the driver had not been able to avoid the collision in view of the sudden appearance of the victim on the road.
9.  On 14 March 1998 the Krynychansky Road Police produced a one-page statement refusing to initiate criminal proceedings against the car driver, referring to the findings by the expert facility.
10.  On 8 July 1998 the Pyatykhatsky District Prosecutors’ Office revoked this decision and initiated criminal proceedings in respect of the accident. The case was transferred to the Pyatykhatsky Police Department and subsequently to the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Police Department.
11.  On 7 August 1998 a post-mortem examination of Igor Antonov was conducted.
12.  On 10 August 1998 the applicant was admitted to the proceedings as an injured party.
13.  On 28 August 1998 an expert assessment was carried out on the vehicle which had hit Igor Antonov.
14.  On 17 September 1998 the criminal proceedings were discontinued, for want of evidence that V.L. had been at fault in hitting the applicant’s son.
15.  On 28 November 1998 the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Prosecutors’ Office revoked this decision, having found it insufficiently substantiated, and remitted the case for further investigation.
16.  Between November 1998 and September 2002 the investigating authorities ordered the criminal proceedings to be discontinued on five occasions for want of evidence of criminal conduct on the driver’s part. All of these decisions were subsequently quashed by the supervising police officials or the Prosecutors’ Office on account of procedural omissions in the investigation.
17.  On 20 November 1998 and 19 July 2001, in response to complaints by the applicant, the Prosecutors’ Office acknowledged that the investigation had been carried out with a number of procedural flaws.
18.  On 31 October 2002 the criminal proceedings were again discontinued for want of evidence of a crime.
19.  On 15 November 2002 the Prosecutors’ Office approved this decision and archived the case file materials. The applicant appealed before the Babushkinsky District Court of Dnipropetrovsk (hereafter “the Babushkinsky Court”).
20.  On 3 March 2003 the Babushkinsky Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal. The applicant further appealed to the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Court of Appeal (hereafter “the Court of Appeal”).
21.  On 21 January 2004 the Court of Appeal quashed the ruling of 3 March 2003 and ordered an additional investigation of the facts of the accident. The court found that the investigation had been carried out in violation of a number of procedural norms; the instructions of the Prosecutors’ Office revoking the previous decisions to discontinue the proceedings had not been carried out; also, the conclusions concerning the material circumstances of the case had been poorly substantiated. In particular, the investigating authorities had failed to establish the precise site of the collision as well as to determine which part of the victim’s body had been hit. Furthermore, they had failed to justify the findings concerning the distance between the victim and the vehicle at the moment of the victim’s appearance on the road as well as those concerning the victim’s speed. The reconstruction of the events had been carried out in absence of the eyewitnesses and any bystanders. No information had been collected as regards the disappearance of the victim’s clothes and shoes, which could have served as important physical evidence. The court further found that the expert opinions, which formed the basis of the conclusions by the investigation, were based on data collected with procedural flaws and could therefore not be deemed reliable.
22.  Between November 2004 and February 2007 the criminal proceedings were discontinued three more times for want of evidence of a crime and subsequently resumed following the revocation of these decisions by the Prosecutors’ Office.
23.  On 27 February 2007 the investigating authorities again discontinued the proceedings for want of evidence of a crime. The Prosecutors’ Office approved this decision. In May 2007 the applicant appealed before the Babushkinsky Court, seeking resumption of the investigation.
24.  On 15 August 2007 the Babushkinsky Court quashed this decision, finding, in particular, that the investigating authorities had failed to reconcile various pieces of evidence and had not complied with the instructions of the Court of Appeal of 21 January 2004 as regards rectification of the omissions of their previous investigation.
25.  On 16 July 2009 and 12 April 2011 the Babushkinsky Court quashed two further decisions to discontinue the proceedings (taken on 6 February 2009 and 3 April 2010 respectively) and ordered a further investigation, finding that the law-enforcement authorities had not completely remedied earlier shortcomings as they had been instructed, and had closed the proceedings prematurely.
26.  On 29 April 2011 the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Court of Appeal annulled the decision of 12 April 2011 and remitted the case for a fresh consideration.
27.  On 28 August 2001 the Pyatykhatsky District Police separated the applicant’s complaint concerning the disappearance of his son’s belongings from the proceedings concerning investigation of the circumstances of his death. The parties did not inform the Court about the outcome of these proceedings.
28.  On 28 February 2008 the Court of Appeal of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, acting as the court of cassation, remitted for fresh consideration the applicant’s civil action against the investigator Sh., in which he was seeking damages for inadequate investigation of his son’s death.
29.  On 17 September 2008 the Supreme Court of Ukraine refused the applicant leave to appeal in cassation against the rulings of the lower courts dismissing his civil claim against the law-enforcement authorities for failure to carry out an effective investigation into his son’s death.
30.  On 19 November 2008 the Donetsk District Administrative Court refused to consider the applicant’s complaint of omissions on the part of the law-enforcement authorities investigating his son’s death. The court claimed to have no jurisdiction over the subject matter of the complaint, as the shortcomings of the investigation could only be assessed by a criminal court within the framework of examination of the criminal case. On 8 May and 25 November 2009 the Donetsk Administrative Court of Appeal and the Higher Administrative Court, respectively, upheld this decision.